Featured image: Seagoth

“This album is dedicated to all of the people who can’t take a day off from themselves, to the people who have to face their greatest fears every single day – and to all the pain we feel, may we heal”. – Seagoth on How to Stay Wide Awake.

While studying music at college up here in the North West back in 2017, Georgia Ochoa found themselves inspired by the sounds of shoegaze, from Beach House to Slowdive. The wide musical expanse of these bands, alongside an interest in film and video game soundtracks, inspired Ochoa to begin their own creative endeavour. 

They reminisce: “I sat in my bedroom with a free version of Garageband on my iPhone and a Westfield Strat I bought for £50 on Facebook”. These humble tools, and a determination to hone their craft found Georgia, under the moniker Seagoth, slowly but surely begin to “sew [a] discography together like a blanket, EP after EP”. 

With the pandemic cutting short their college course, the seeds of How to Stay Wide Awake began to be planted. 12 months later, Tame Impala-inspired single ‘Eternity’ was unveiled, placing Seagoth on the radar of electronic label Bytes. By the end of 2021, ‘Eternity’ had received sound production treatment from Leaf Troup (GLOK/Kasabian) and was re-released with the label. 

2022 marked the singles ‘Queen’, a guitar and synth-drenched anthem reminiscent of Peace, and ‘Amorphous’, a summer-certified shoegaze number that Ochoa wrote “as a reminder that we are just nature”. Two years on, through a combination of meticulous craft and passionate perseverance, comes the debut album that Seagoth is ready to share with the world. 

‘Eternity’ acts as the record’s front door, a fantastically flounced entrance opening wide and inviting you into the walls of Seagoth’s mind. From there, it’s a joyride of slick synths, spangly strings and dreamy bedroom-pop lyricism. ‘Internet Cafe’, released as a single just last month, is a vibrant and multi-layered slice of pop pie, best served warm. ‘Internet Cafe’ and ‘Dreamworld’ hint at an air of Caroline Polachek.

The album started as a self-professed insight into the queer experience but over the process of writing and recording, expanded into reflecting the universal human condition. “It’s early morning, how do we keep today from getting away”, Ochoa croons over the bubbly BPM of ‘Early Morning’. ‘Cyberdaze’ speaks to the experience of virtual connection: “Don’t you miss when we could talk about it face to face… it’s not the same”. ‘Amorphous’, draws the hypothetical curtains on How to Stay Wide Awake, though there’s a selection of remixes bolted onto the end.

Overall, it’s a stellar effort from Seagoth. Mixed by Leaf Group and mastered by Curved Pressing, the album is crisp and exuberant, the perfect backdrop to the warmer days on the horizon. It’s interesting that 12^th April marks the International Day of Human Space Flight, with Yuri Gagarin making space exploration history on this date in 1961. From starry space to salty sea, 12^th April, 2024 serves to act as the formal introduction of Seagoth to the masses – prepare for the waves.

How to Stay Wide Awake is out now. Keep up with Seagoth on socials including Instagram, X, YouTube, TikTok and Facebook.

Find full tracklist of How to Stay Wide Awake below:

1. Eternity
2. Find the Time
3. Queen
4. Internet Cafe
5. Methuselah
6. Lava Lamp
7. Early Morning
8. Dreamworld
9. Cyberdaze
10. Don’t Stare
11. The Writing on the Wall
12. Amorphous
13. Eternity (GLOK Remix)
14. Queen (Timothy Clerkin Remix)
15. Amorphous (Minotaur Shock Remix)
16. Methuselah (Maps Remix)